FAQ
Q: What is Xemerys all about? A: Xemerys is an online strategy game which puts you in the role of a city-state ruler. The objective is to develop the biggest and the most influential city in the world! Q: Do I need to download anything to play Xemerys? A: You don't need to download a client, you only need a modern browser (Firefox 3.5+, Opera 10+, IE8+) and you're all set. Q: I don't have much time to play and it looks kinda complicated... A: Xemerys is a bit more complex than other online games, but it's not complicated. Its easy to use interface will allow you to play it intuitively and you'll have a mature community happy to help you. You don't have to spend much time on it, a few times a day to give some orders and cast some spells are enough to maintain your city-state. Q: How long is a round? A: 10 minutes. Q: How can I name my city-state? A: All city-states come with a default name (Xemya) that can be changed. You will find your city-state's name on the left of your Advisers. Click on it to replace it. Q: What will happen if I change the research subject before the current one is completed? Will the progress on the original subject be lost? A: No, your progress will be stored. You can continue where you left off at a later time without having to start from scratch. Q: When are the additional free Premium Points awarded? A: Once a day, but nobody knows when... Q: When/how often does the weather change? A: Once a day. Q: What happens if I can't provide for the needs of my people? E.g. if I run out of Bread? A: You will start to suffer from Unhappiness from unsatisfied needs, with the level of unhappiness depending on the severity of the shortage. The low happiness level you'll have in that scenario will negatively affect city influence and reduce your chances to get free Premium Points and to spread or resist propaganda. Q: What happens if my population hits zero? A: Your population will never hit zero, you'll get the GAME OVER screen before that . Q: What happens if I go broke, i.e. if my treasury reaches zero? A: Your city influence will go down the drain, affecting your chances to spread or resist propaganda. And obviously you can't do anything that costs gold. When you reach -5000 is GAME OVER. Q: If my population hits 1000 but I'm still on the first level of Quality of Life, will I get any Unhappiness from unsatisfied needs penalty if I don't have Liquor or Entertainment yet? A: No, they will only kick in once you upgrade. Q: Help! I upgraded to level 5 Quality of Life very quickly but now I can't get the resources together to maintain that level, can I downgrade back to a lower level? A: Yes you can, once your happiness is lower than -5. Q: Help! I extended the housing capacity to 10,000 people very quickly but now I can't get the resources together to maintain that many people, can I downgrade back to a lower capacity? A: No. Make sure you plan ahead before extending the housing -- it takes a lot of resources to run a large city. If you haven't and you really see no way of coping with your current situation, your only way out is to use the Start Again feature to restart from scratch. Q: How can I switch to a different special resource when I can only build one type of raw resource building? A: You can switch by morphing your special resource industry into another special resource industry or by demolishing your old raw resource facilities and then building new ones for a different resource. Note that Wheat and Milk are not special resources, so there's no point in demolishing those buildings! (Unless of course you built too many and want to save on Industry Upkeep costs, but it won't let you more special resources like Berries or Silver.) Q: When will inflation start kicking in? A: At a population of 1000. Q: Help! I just built a new Bakery (or any other building) but the team management hasn't changed, it still lists 1/1 teams rather than 1/2. A: You probably don't have enough free workers. The team listing shows how many teams your city can support, not just what the building can. Check the team size for this building and make sure you have at least that many unemployed workers available. Q: What are Trade Portals and why do I need more than one? A: Trade Portals let you send goods to other players, whether through the Trading Office, the Merchants' Den or the World Map. Each outgoing delivery (of up to 25,000 goods) occupies 1 portal for a certain amount of time. That time can be anywhere from a few minutes to a day or more, depending on how far away that player is as well as any effects on travel time. If you want to send multiple deliveries at once (which may happen, especially if you're sending goods to someone several hours away) you will need to have several portals. Note that incoming deliveries will use your portals if you imported a good. Q: Do trade portals only cost you gold when in use? A: Yes. Q: I don't like the deals in the Trading Office, can I negotiate better ones? A: Yes, in two ways: by contacting the players you see offering deals in private to see if they're willing to negotiate, which you can do using the Send message option on the World Map, or by visiting the Merchants' Den and asking in public for the trades you're looking for. If you do the latter also read what others have posted to see if someone else has proposed something similar to what you want already. Note that this also lets you trade goods for other goods, rather than just buy or sell them for gold. Note that in either case you may not get an immediate response, as not everyone is online all day, every day (this is true for trading through the Trade Office as well of course). Sometimes it can be hours or even days before someone who's interested in your offer comes along. Don't be discouraged if you don't get a response right away, just check back later to see if you got any follow-ups, in either the Merchant's Den or in your private message log. If you still get no response, try posting again, different people may be around now who didn't see your earlier message. If that still doesn't work consider changing the conditions of your deal or propose a different deal altogether. Q: In the Merchants' Den, what does WTT mean? A: WTT stands for Want to Trade. Similar but less common are WTB (want to buy) and WTS (want to sell). "WTT X for Y" normally means that you would like to receive good X, and can offer good Y in return. Unfortunately the grammar here is ambiguous and not everyone is on the same page with the convention to use. If it's not very clear from the wording what is meant, the 'established' convention is to state what you want first and what you can offer in return second. Unfortunately you can't assume that everyone knows this (there are in fact plenty of people that use the opposite convention) so don't hesitate to ask for confirmation of what someone means. Generally it's best to just avoid the whole issue and say something like "have X, want Y" instead -- then there's no room for confusion. Q: What does QoL stand for? A: QoL stands for Quality of Life. Q: Can I send other players Gold or Premium Points? A: No, you can only make trade deals involving Gold using the Trading Office (although you can negotiate deals through private messages or the Merchants' Den first and place your offering in the Trading Office to reflect that), and Premium Points cannot be involved in trades at all. Q: How do I perform a spell or propaganda on myself? A: On the left-hand side of the screen, under Temporary Effects, click on Cast Spell or Spread Propaganda. Then select the spell or propaganda you want (note: it is possible for you to perform hexes on yourself, if you enjoy that sort of thing). Q: How do I perform a spell or propaganda on another player? A: Go to the world map, look up that player's city (navigate the map or search for their name), select the city and click on Cast Spell or Spread Propaganda. Note that performing bless spells on other players costs Premium Points (when gold membership is not activated) in addition to energy and doesn't have a 100% success rate (unlike most spells you perform on yourself). You can increase your success chances with other spells, propaganda or civics. Q: Why can't I perform a spell or propaganda on another player? A: Check if "The city is frozen in time and space", which means the city is inactive. This player either hasn't logged in for a few days or has set their account to vacation mode. You cannot interact with them in any way until they reactivate their account. Q: What happens if the overall happiness drops below 0? A: Many things can happen. As soon as your happiness drops below 0, there is a chance every round to trigger the French Strike. If happiness reaches -3.5, it will trigger Unhappiness. When it reaches -5 you will drop one QoL (Quality of Life) level. Q: I've been hit by Unhappiness, although my overall happiness is above 0! A: You probably got unsatisfied needs for a short moment (i.e. one round). Just enough to bring the overall Happiness to -3.5 for one round and trigger Unhappiness. How to avoid this situation? Make sure you have at least one round worth of QoL resource consumption in your warehouse at all times. Q: What benefits do I have if I maintain high happiness/ health? A: A happiness/health of 10 will trigger a special effect in the city which will provide you with bonuses. A high happiness also increases your resistance against foreign propaganda. Last but not least, higher happiness means higher chances to get free Premium Points, while higher health increases the amount of Premium Points you can win. Q: I've been hit by the cataclysm! What can I do? A: The cataclysm hits everyone in the world. While you can activate the Cataclysm Defender to become immune for a day, working together with other players will help you survive (depending on the cataclysm effects which are random every time). Q: How long will the cataclysm last? A: Between 1 and 4 days. Q: How does the pollution affect me? A: A pollution rating greater than 0 means there is a chance every round to trigger the 'Local Warming' effect. When pollution is below 0, it has no effect on anything.